Large Solar Prominence with one sun spot (Tej Dyal)

Large Solar Prominence with one sun spot

This is my second ever imaging session in H-Alpha on my PST. I feel lucky to have caught a lovely huge prominence...with a lonely sunspot (the only one on the surface) looking jealous and vying for some attention!

A couple of people wanted to know how I achieved focus with the PST using a DSLR because I agree, the PST is quite notorious for its short focal travel and the sensor of the DSLR is quite far back. So here is what I use to achieve focus. The key element is Televue (TV) 2.5X Powermate and a special TV T_ring adaptor. The Powermate's eyepiece barrel can be unscrewed and replaced with the TV t-ring which in turn screws unto the T-ring specific to your DSLR. So its a 4 piece chain. Your camera, your camera specific T-Ring adaptor, the TV T-Ring adapter and the Powermate (sans eyepiece barrel). This chain brings the Canon's sensor chip closer to the Powermate's lens and so just about within the PST's focal range. This chain I use for both the close up and full sun images and that is thanks the Canon's great 5X Live View record feature which I can toggle the 5X magnification to capture either full sun or close up on prominences as I've done here. Of course, a monochrome astro camera will etch our far superior details but for some reason, with my DSLR, I can capture both surface detail and prominences in one single shoot, whereas with a monochrome camera, one has to shoot prominences separately to a surface detail shoot and then either layer them together in post processing or simply keep the two images separately...as far as I am aware, please do correct me if you have achieved otherwise.

Date: 1st June 2014

Camera: Canon 650D

Image capture type: 43secs 5X Live View video capture mode

Prime Focal (2.5X TV Powermate projected replacing eyepiece barrel with TV Powermate T-Ring)

Frames per sec: 10

OTA: Coronado PST

Mount: Nexstar Alt-Az Goto

Filters: Coronado PST

Seeing:

Wind:

Light Pollution:

Post processing: Stacking 15% best frames, RGB Balanced in Registax

Monochrome, tint, Exposure, gamma, smart sharpen in PS5

Pre-shoot prep: Focus using 5X Live View

Location: From my bedroom window, Peckham, inner London.

File: out_469

	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	n/a
Started	n/a
Astrometry.net job	n/a
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):